"Ignoramus21938" wrote in message
...
On 2008-03-22, Wes wrote:
These 'more affluent' consumers presumably had access to a higher level
of
education than most of those on lower rungs that had their dreams wiped
out
by the realities of finance.

How are you and your ilk going to spin this as how the banks took
advantage
of them? Greed. It is prevalent at all levels of income and leads to
the
undoing of many. The banks are blameless.

I think that traits like propensity to spend vs. save, are basic
personality traits and are not really changeable by education.

I actually agree with the remarks that you made. People who borrowed
too much, knew everything and took the risks willingly.

But they didn't "know everything," even if they could follow the legal
obscurantism in the contracts. What they didn't know was the same thing that
everyone else in the US, and in the financial community all around the world
didn't know, which is that, for the first time in history, American house
prices were going to decline on a nationwide business.

It never happened before. If they had asked their banker, or anyone else who
follows it, what the chances were they'd be upside-down on their mortgage in
a year or two or three, making it impossible for them to flip their house
and come out ahead if the mortgage became too much for them, the bankers
would have laughed in their faces. The experts "knew" that it couldn't
happen, because it has never happened before.

So it doesn't make much sense to say these people knew what the risks were.
No one else did, either.

--
Ed Huntress